Analysis: The Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle's Lifestyle brand and the Netflix deal including With Love, Meghan

The British media panned it as unwatchable and they could not stop falling over themselves in a quest for who will come up with the most eye catching negative headline. "Let them eat fruit" was one headline in the Guardian to emphasize the British class structure.

And yet hundreds of thousands of words have been written about the lifestyle of the cookware shown to every inch of her wardrobe warned on the Netflix series With Love, Meghan.

The latest person to have an opinion about the Duchess of Sussex Meghan's lifestyle brand is Martha Stewart in a long line of people who allegedly know better.

The official Netflix trailer of With Love, Meghan on YouTube has had more than 122,000 comments in six months. It seems many want to share their own opinion about it.

And of course in this digital age, AI has to have its own opinion as well be it biased by what it can find online.

The British media ridiculed her pineapple hack of a deleted scene of the Netflix series but yet her Instagram @meghan post of the hack has had more than 16M views.

Many could not stop posting online videos of their own version of the viral trend With Love, Meghan spaghetti recipe. There was a quest for who can come up with the most views. The best content creators having millions of views.

There is an actual "flower sprinkles" trend on Google search attributed to the Netflix series With Love, Meghan.

As the alleged $100 million Netflix deal comes to its natural end this year, will Netflix axed a forum which has given them so much exposure? Or is it more like the two parties concerned may want to move on to a different sort of partnership involving merchandise which they have already had a taste of with AsEver formerly known as American Riviera Orchard.

The Duchess of Sussex Meghan has certainly embarked into an interesting journey with her AsEver company with all the pitfalls of a startup. There is however still an outstanding issue which lingers on despite the name change from American Riviera Orchard.

Without any due diligence in the onboarding process, you can allegedly open a shop on Shopify with a trademark you do not own. The onus is then left to the owners of the trademark to prove their legal right of ownership.

Despite it being apparently linked to a very high profile public figure, the Duchess of Sussex Meghan's company AsEver formerly known as American Riviera Orchard (ARO), Shopify requires a legal proof of ownership for a takedown notice or at least an investigation. In a response to an enquiry of ownership and a notification of an alleged trademark infringement I submitted, Shopify responded with an email detailing the legal process to be followed for such notice. AsEver has not yet responded to the enquiry of ownership of the Shopify shop or any knowledge of trademark infringement. This maybe due to the fact that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected an application to trademark the name American Riviera Orchard in August 2024.

https://americanrivieraorchard.myshopify.com/

The question here is therefore if AsEver is legally exposed to a claim of trademark infringement because of its link to the name American Riviera Orchard. A trademark which it does not apparently legally own. It seems that anybody can use the name American Riviera Orchard without for now any legal consequences. USPTO rejected an application to trademark the name American Riviera Orchard because the name American Riviera was “primarily geographically descriptive.”

The next product restock is coming soon and that will certainly improve the startup company's balance sheet. For wine lovers and the Duchess of Sussex Meghan's fans, the date of the Napa Valley Rosé maybe significant for the AsEver female founder, 2024 was the year it all started despite all the difficulties with the trademark of American Riviera Orchard.